“I can’t believe we’ve bought all of this.” Nan crossed her eyes at the packages piled into the rented baby stroller. As Alexi pointed out, she needed the practice in pushing a stroller and it beat lugging the bags or hiking back and forth to the parking garage by a long mall mile.
“Believe it,” Alexi said then came to such a sudden stop that Nan nearly tripped over the stroller.
“You weren’t kidding about the practice bit. Mark sudden stops off your strategy list.” Nan laughed as she turned to see what had grabbed Alexi attention.
“This is it,” Alexi said.
Nan frowned at the mannequin draped in sexy sophistication. The burgundy silk and satin ensemble glimmered with dark sable highlights.
“Lexi, I love you when I say this, but you’re going to have to wait until after the baby to get that.”
“Let’s go in.” Alexi wheeled into the store and caught the salesperson’s attention. “We need that dress,” she pointed to the display, “to fit her.” Alexi pointed Nan’s way.
Nan gasped. “No. That’s way too, I don’t know, wow, for me.” She backed up.
Alex grabbed her arm. “It’s not too anything for you except perfect. Perfectly elegant and perfectly sexy. Just the sort of dress you need for the fundraising banquet party. If Brad Swanson is any kind of man you’re going to knock his surgical booties off.”
Nan looked at the dress and shook her head again.
“Trust me,” Alexi said, pulling Nan to the dressing rooms. “What can it hurt to try it on?”
“I’ll look like a fraud.”
“Why?”
“Because…” Nan didn’t have an answer, and she hated to think it was because Alexi might have a point to what she’d said earlier about being afraid to live life. “I don’t guess it will hurt to try it on.” Nan followed the salesperson to the dressing room, grumbling. “How do you know there’s even going to be a party? What if you can’t replace the orchestra?”
“Don’t worry,” Alexi said then laughed. “I’ve got it handled.”
The dress, reminiscent of vintage forties style, looked like a dream, and could be worn with or without the sleek cape. Nan felt and looked like a million in it. She bought it.
“Now we’ve got to go home,” Nan said, walking out of the boutique. “I’m out of funds for at least the next thirty years.”
“We can go now,” Alexi agreed, looking entirely too pleased, as if she’d been the one to buy the killer dress. Nan frowned, wondering if she had missed something.
By the next day, she’d forgotten Alexi’s pleased look, having replaced it with a frown of her own in the restroom mirror at work. Nobody told her that lingerie should come with warning labels. Labels that said Danger—silky underwear is hazardous to your peace of mind. Every time the body-warmed silk slid over her sensitive skin, Jackson crossed her mind. It was humiliating. She marched from the nurses break room in a huff and ran right into Head Nurse Litton.
“Nurse Miller, I was just looking for you. May I have a word with you in my office?”
“Of Course,” Nan said, wincing at her supervisor’s stern visage. Head Nurse Litton ran the Labor and Delivery Department like a captain ran a tight ship. Everything from her cropped hair to her short nails was as crisp and practical as her starched uniform and manner.
Heat flooded Nan’s cheeks. Following the head nurse, Nan slid into the empty chair in the office sure she was about to be lectured for being distracted.
Nurse Litton frowned down at the file opened on her desk before speaking. “Seems we’ve run into a problem on the Nurse’s Trouble Shooting Committee. Since you were working when we met last, I'm sure you’re unaware that Sandy Mason had to resign as spokesperson for the group. Her husband is being relocated with his company. To sum up a long meeting, it was proposed that the nurses vote for a candidate to replace Sandy. You received the most votes and I have to agree with our co-workers, you’d be perfect for the position. We need a Nurse in touch with the staffing problems who will tactfully address issues like the antiquated way the pharmacy insists on packaging medications. Your Lois Emerson Merit Awards will go a long way in making the hospital board take our grievances seriously.”
Nan swallowed the lump of surprise in her throat along with the knot of trepidation that formed. She didn’t feel qualified for the position for one thing. Then, secondly, to do an effective job for the Nurse’s Trouble Shooting Committee, she would have to be willing to argue with the board on behalf of her fellow nurses—an action that wouldn’t necessarily endear them to her and put her in the best light as a choice for the scholarship. But, then, it was a tremendous that her fellow nurses had that much confidence in her.
She’d always been a “behind the scenes” advocate for changing the nurses work environment, which was up toward the top of the “most stressful job to have list,” and got worse every year as hospitals faced rising costs with fewer funds.
“I’m flattered. I don’t know any other way to say this, but I don’t think I’m qualified for the position. Sandy Mason has a Masters degree in Nursing Science and Business Management. I don’t.”
“Sometimes it’s not the college credits that count. Sometimes it’s the effort and work experience that matter more. I think you’ll do just fine.”
Nan drew in a deep breath. “I’m going to need to think about this.”
Head Nurse Litton smiled. “Take your time. And rather than giving me an answer, why don’t you try next month's meeting with the hospital board on for size? If you’re still uncomfortable with the position afterwards, then we can look for a replacement.” Nurse Litton snapped the file closed, indicating Nan’s dismissal.
The knot that had been in Nan’s throat sank to her stomach and stuck. Thanking the head nurse for the honor, Nan had no choice but to leave things at this point for now. In truth, it was the perfect compromise. She could do her best to meet up to the honor the nurses had bestowed on her, and then if it wasn’t the right job for her, she had a way to pass the position on.
If only it were all that simple. Twice in the next month she was going to be brought before the notice of the board. She could only pray that she made a favorable impression at the banquet, so that any negative issues she addressed at the trouble shooting meeting would balance out the board’s opinion of her.
* * *
“Hell hath no fury like a southern storm,” Nan muttered in dismay as she paced across her den to look at the lightning slashing the Saturday evening sky. Pre-banquet cocktails had started fifteen minutes ago and Brad had yet to pick her up.
She was a porcupine of sharp nerves--worry over the possibility that Brad could have crashed in the storm, anxiety over making a good impression during the dinner with the hospital board, self-conscious over her new dress, and just plain irritation at her continued preoccupation with the he who-she-would-not-name person. Not thinking his name was her newest tactic in trying to free her mind from thoughts of him. She didn’t think it was working, but she was sticking with it until she came up with a new plan.
The phone rang and Nan rushed to it.
“Nan, it’s Brad.”
“Thank goodness. Are you all right?”
“Fine. A patient of mine ran into a few complications and I haven’t felt comfortable leaving the hospital until now. Can you meet me at the yacht club?”
“Sure,” Nan said, forcing herself to take a breath rather than ask Brad why he’d waited so late to call her. She could have gone to the yacht club, been on time, and missed the heaviest part of the storm raging outside.
“I’ll meet you there.” Brad hung up.
Nan blinked as the dial tone rang in her ear. Considering the yacht club was five minutes from the hospital and almost thirty minutes from her place, Brad was only going to be fashionably late, while she’d be miserably so. And growing later by the second. Nan hurriedly gathered her stuff and had to settle for a large green garbage bag as rain gear. Her raincoat and umbrella were in her
nurses’ locker at the hospital thanks to Channel Two’s meteorologist and her travel umbrella was already in the car. She would definitely have to switch her loyalties to another station. The weatherman’s prediction of calm and cool missed the mark by a wide country mile. The night was as steamy, wet, and wicked as a coed sauna.
The whole way there she had to creep at a snail’s pace as the storm lashed and wailed. Its towering fury made her and her second-hand BMW seem very miniscule, like she was the fly and it was a King-Kong sized swatter.
The relief she felt as she pulled into the Savannah Star Yacht Club’s parking lot was short lived. She wasted two minutes waiting for a valet to appear through the driving rain. When no one showed, she gave up and searched for a parking space. She found one in the last row and the far end of the parking lot.
Bolstered with a deep breath, she dashed into the thunderstorm. Her only protection from the gale force wind and driving rain were a mini umbrella and a trash bag. She wielded them like a sword and shield, determined to hold onto her enthusiasm for the evening. She refused to let irritation be a third party on her first date with Brad. After all, she fully understood duty to a patient. How many times had she herself stayed over when she felt she was needed? Plenty.
By the time she’d walked ten feet, a wet hand had wiped out the sophisticated touches she’d added to her appearance. Her burgundy silk cocktail dress lost its elegant flair and the svelte hairstyle she’d spent an hour on went haywire. This couldn’t be happening.
Tonight she’d wanted everything to iron out without a wrinkle. Instead a major kink developed, knotting her confidence with it. She couldn’t sit with the hospital board looking like a drowned rat.
She’d run a long way from the shy little girl who’d grown up poor on the backside of a country road, and the storm was doing its best to blow her back there, like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz. But unlike Dorothy, Nan knew her heart’s desire would never be to return to where she came from. Only bad memories resided there.
Hurrying toward the distant lights of the yacht club, she ignored the niggling thought that Brad, a man brilliant enough to make neurosurgical history, surely could have saved her the grief of trudging through the storm of the century. Why hadn’t he called earlier?
The harder she pushed against the wind, the longer the parking lot grew. The storm swelled around her to frightening proportions. Her heart pounded and a tiny shiver of fear raced up her spine. She shouldn’t be out in this mess. She should have waited for the storm to ease, no matter how late that would have made her.
Neither her umbrella nor the garbage bag staved off the dragon bite of the lashing wind. Lightning strobe lit the sky and thunder set her ears to ringing. Suddenly, a wind gust ferried up from behind like a freight train. It flipped her umbrella inside out, blew her dress up, and knocked her off her three-inch heels.
She fell face forward against the hood of a pick-up truck with an inelegant whoosh and lay stunned a second; the breath forced from her lungs. Rain drenched her black lace underwear, and the pooling droplets of water on the hood soaked the front of her dress.
“Mary Poppins you’re not, sugar. But you’ll do,” a familiar and unwelcome voice drawled.
“Oh!” Mortified, Nan snapped upright just as a warm hand brushed her derrière. Jackson! Of all the rotten luck. What in the hell was he doing here?
She refused to acknowledge the pleasurable shiver tingling through her. Instead, she spun around, ready to do harm with her warped umbrella.
Having a man inadvertently see the lingerie she and Alexi had splurged on irked. Having that man be Jackson really rattled her cage. Nan refused to even think for a minute that her fantasies about Jackson played any role in her new underwear purchases.
Lightning briefly illuminated the strong curve of his stubble-rough jaw, devilish smile, and raven’s wing hair whipping in the wind. Damn, the man had no right to look so sexy in the middle of hell. He stripped off his black leather jacket, pushed her umbrella aside, and leaned in close.
“You bait a nice hook, sugar.”
“You. You Peeping Tom!” Her search for something sophisticated and deadly to say fizzled as ridiculous.
“Careful. You’re giving me ideas for a new profession.”
She didn’t have a chance to reply before his leather jacket descended over her head and his strong arm encircled her.
“Tell me how sorry I am later, sugar.” He plucked the inverted umbrella from her, popped it back right, and held it before them as he propelled them toward the back door of the yacht club, not the least daunted by the storm's fury. But then, Nan didn't think much got past Jackson's thick wall. She gritted her teeth, irritated. Both the timing of Jackson's appearance and the man were too welcome for her peace of mind.
She tingled from the heat of his arm about her, the feel of his lean, hard body next to her, and the tangy scent of musk and leather enveloping her.
“Here we go.” He hustled her into a lit hallway.
Anxious to rid herself of his scent, she slid off his coat. Cool air assaulted, making her too aware of the heat from his body behind her, touching her, like he’d said on the phone.
Can’t you feel me? I’m right up against you. Feel the heat? My hands on you… my mouth.
She shivered. The creamy watered silk walls, crown molding, and plush carpet contrasted sharply with her soggy, bedraggled state and she turned to face him, feeling like a swamp rat. He'd moved closer and her chest landed smack up against his hot, very male one.
“Where are we?” Drawing back, she teetered, dropping his coat.
“Backstage of the ballroom and just where we need to be." He grinned and settled his hands on her hips. When he spoke, his deep voice rumbled right to her core and set off a series of delicious quakes. "It’s been a while, sugar. A long while. You hung up too soon last week. We didn’t get to the good part.”
CHAPTER THREE
Nan tried to stop the quakes of desire from spreading by clenching her stomach muscles. It didn’t help. Jackson let his shoulders rest on the door behind him and drew her between his jeans-clad, booted legs. She didn’t have to look to know how his jeans fit or how his leather boots gleamed. Not a thing about his dark Irish looks and southern bad boy manners had changed.
“Yes, a long while,” she whispered past the lump in her throat. A droplet of water ran down her cheek, dripped onto her breastbone, and slithered between her breasts. Jackson’s gaze followed its path, heated, then lingered. Nan looked down. Her halter-top gown lay plastered to her body like skin, the wet silk clearly defining the rise of her breasts and nipples. Something about her dress, besides the wet, was off, but the hot missiles firing at her erogenous zones scrambled her brain cells and she couldn't figure it out.
She slammed her eyes shut. Surely, this had to be another one of her fantasies. Any minute she would wake up and find herself alone, writing in her secret black book.
“Way too long,” he growled, sliding his hands from her hips to cup the fullness of her bottom. Nan opened her eyes to the pure sexual intensity in his. Nope, not a fantasy. He was as potent, and as real as it got. He wanted her and she wanted him. Not a problem.
The problem was what came after the bedroom. She wasn’t about to get involved with a man going nowhere. He lived his life by whim; she lived hers by a plan. She had goals; she was going somewhere in life and he wasn’t budging from the comfortable hole he’d dug.
Any second he would kiss her. Desire sizzled up her spine and overrode rational thought. One more kiss wouldn’t hurt, would it?
“Or not long enough?” he said, setting her back on her feet. “I forgot you’re baiting your hook for a bigger fish. Brad Swanson. Alexi mentioned you’re seeing him.” Tension tightened his lips, coolness edged into his eyes, and his husky voice had turned harsh.
Jackson made it sound as if she and Brad had a thing going and Nan wondered what Alexi had told him. Even if she did have a thing going with Brad, Jackson’s tone was ou
t of line. Her back stiffened as she went to set him straight. “Just because I have goals and direction doesn’t mean I’m a…a hook baiter, and it doesn’t give you the right to use that tone of voice, either. We aren’t an item.”
Now that Nan had a moment to think about it, Alexi had a hell of a lot of explaining to do. Nan didn’t think it coincidence that Alexi had asked to go shopping the same day the orchestral band cancelled. Alexi had probably planned the Sinfully Silky shopping knowing that Jackson’s band was going to be the substitute. And the dress Alexi had talked her into...
Jackson snatched his coat off the ground and shoved it her way. “Those black lace panties looked like bait to me, and unless you’re wanting to turn my whole band on, you better keep that a while yet, because your nipples are begging to be nibbled.” He stared at her breasts again.
Nan finally realized the loose silk cape to her dress was missing. She must have lost it in the storm. Instead of subtle, elegant sensuality, her wet dressed screamed I’m hot baby. Oh no! Could things get any worse?
“There’s a dressing room you can use to fix yourself up, but if I were you, I’d go home and get warm. Seeing Brad can’t be worth catching a cold.”
“Direct me to the ladies’ room, please.”
“Fine.” His voice vibrated with anything but fine tones.
Fine, she told herself. If Jackson wanted to think she was a bait hooker, or a hook baiter, however it was said, then it was fine with her. Just fine. She wasn’t going to set him straight that this was her first date with Brad. And she wasn’t going to give Jackson the satisfaction of seeing her leave the party. She’d go repair what damage she could in the bathroom and then keep her date with Brad.
Smooth Irish (Book 2 of the Weldon Series) Page 3
